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Write Your Obama Administration Wish List

President-elect Obama’s team has set up a webpage for input called “Your Vision.” I encourage you to go to this link and send the Obama team your thoughts on making a better world. http://www.change.gov/yourvision

Here’s the list I sent them tonight:

Universal single payer health care, which includes preventative health education and facilities.

Fund free education for all citizens, preschool through doctorate; educated people are a country’s greatest asset.

Buy the Big Three auto companies and retool them to manufacture public transportation, cars that use little or no petroleum, plus light rail, and other green alternative transportation. Employ millions doing it.

Repair our bridges, levees, schools, hospitals, and other vital infrastructure, and employ millions doing it. Change the election system to hand counted paper ballots, and eliminate the electoral college. Move to proportional representation instead of a two party system.

Stop tax loopholes to big corporations, tax breaks for the wealthy, and make caps on salaries and benefits for CEOs. Decrease the difference between the highest and lowest wages.

Make the use of post-consumer waste recycled paper a requirement for a bulk-mailing permit. Place paper recycling containers in post offices.

Make the funding of schools a priority. Raise teachers’ salaries and buy more materials for schools, especially in poorer neighborhoods.

Study the work of Jaime Lerner and the city of Curitiba, Parana, Brazil for excellent ways to revitalize cities.

Increase funding for National Public Television, with an emphasis on educational programming, especially in areas of civics, law and history, so that we have more voters who are informed about how government works.

Legalize gay marriage.

Decriminalize possession by adults of small amounts of marijuana, so that our prisons are no longer clogged with people accused of victimless crimes. Instead, focus on stopping the operation of motor vehicles while intoxicated (by any substance.)

I personally object to people owning guns, but if gun ownership cannot be stopped, then I say, at least, they should require licenses, as automobile ownership does, and assault weapons should be banned.

Speaking of banning weapons, it’s time to join together with the world to stop nuclear weapons (and bio-weapons) proliferation.

Certainly we are ready for an end to torture, domestic spying, police brutality against political demonstrators, and pre-emptive war.

We are ready to revive the Fairness Act. We are ready for anti-trust laws that break up media conglomerates.

We are ready for a return of the unions and laws that prevent union busting. This is the time to empower employees, self-employed entrepreneurs, small business owners, and consumers, and to regulate mega-corporations.

This is also a time to recognize that full time mothering is a job and deserves the same payment and benefits of other kinds of work. Children who grow up with a parent at home who is devoted to their care are much more likely to achieve positive goals and to avoid destructive behavior.